N.D. GIRL, 17, CHARGED WITH KILLING YOUTH

Stanley, N.D., Dec 14(UP)—Alice Holst, 17, is scheduled to be arraigned here today on a charge of shooting to death William Nafus, 23, in the Roy Hands pol {sic} hall at Sanish yesterday.

A coroner's jury held that Nafus was murdered and requested the girl be arrested. The motive for the shooting is unknown.

Miss Holst, who is said not to be very strong physically, and to have been subject to fits, fainted after the shooting and did not regain consciousness for an hour. Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gust Holst, who live on a farm near Sanish, fear the reaction may prove fatal to the girl.

Alice was employed in the lunch room in connection with the pool hall. According to the story told at the inquest she secured a .38 calibre revolver, went to the pool room and asked for Nafus. When he answered she shot him through the heart. The boy died instantly.

Nafus is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Nafus of Van Hook.

Nafus was talking with friends and when Miss Holst entered and called him over to her. When he saw the revolver he backed away and shouted: "For God's sake don't do that." A few moments later the shot was fired and Nafus fell to the floor with a .38 bullet in his body. The girls raised the gun again as if there was something else she was going to do, then flung it from her. It slid across the floor and came to rest beneath a radiator on the far side of the room.

Miss Holst then turned to leave the room, but fainted and fell to the floor. According to word received here, the sheriff and his prisoner are delayed in their arrival here by the snow blocked roads. Alice will be arraigned upon her arrival before Justice of Peace George W Wilson. Since she was taken into custody her mother, Mrs. Gust Holst, has been with her.

Moorhead Daily News, 12/14/1926
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Alice Holst Not Sorry She Killed Nafus

Prolonged Brooding Over Wrong Man Is Alleged To Have Done Her Cause.

Stanley, N.D.—Expressing no regret for the slaying of William Nafus at Sanish on Monday afternoon, Alice Holst, 20-year-old daughter of well-known farmers residing between Van Hook and Sanish, today is held in the custody of Sheriff Odin Stray in this city while authorities are going forward with the preparations to file a charge of first degree murder against her.

Conviction on the charge would subject the bobbed-haired, unassuming slayer to a sentence of life imprisonment in the state penitentiary.

"It was my own act and deed and if I had it to do over again, I'd do the same. No one prompted me to do it, and I'm not sorry," was the statement reported to have been made by the girl to Sheriff Stray and State's Attorney C. N. Cottonham of Stanley, who brought her to this city late yesterday from Sanish.

The nights and days of brooding over a wrong which Nafus is alleged to have perpetrated upon her is the major motive which is believed by authorities to have resulted in the girl shooting Nafus in the {illeg.} pool hall at Sanish.

Bismarck Tribune, 12/15/1926
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GIRL TELLS OF ATTACK BY BOY SHE MURDERED

Stanley N.D., Dec 15(UP)—A mother and father struck dumb by the disaster that has come upon their daughter, a lover who remains true and a big-eyed girl who believes that shooting is justified by certain conditions are the main characters in the sad drama in the Mountrail county court house.

Sheriff Stray returned from Sanish 20 miles south of here this afternoon, bringing with him Miss Alice Holtz, 20, who yesterday shot Willie Nafus through the heart with a .38 calibre revolver, taking a life that has on previous occasions been linked up with an unsavory affair with a young girl. The shooting took place in a pool hall in Sanish when Miss Holtz followed Nafus into a pool room, called him to her and shot him through the heart, killing him almost instantly.

A coroner's jury found that Nafus had been murdered and asked that Alice be arrested. In company with her parents, Alice was brought here yesterday afternoon by Sheriff Stray and State Attorney C. N. Cottingham said that a charge of first degree murder will be lodged against her. The preliminary hearing will be held before Justice George Wilson.

"I am sorry for what I did," Miss Holtz told authorities. She believes that she did service to womankind and is willing to take the consequences. Apparently calm, she awaits the outcome. Alice's father, with tears streaming down his face and with a voice that wavered, looked the reporter squarely in the eye this afternoon and said:

"Alice is a good girl. She went down to Sanish to work in a restaurant. She has been going with a young man from Sanish for some time. He is all right. I believe they were to be married. This Willie Nafus kept hanging around the restaurant. You know his reputation. Alice knew it too. He tried to get Alice to go out with him. She never would. Last Saturday night he followed Alice when she left the restaurant and overtook her near the school house. He got Alice into the school house. A struggle followed and Alice fainted. For two days and nights Alice cried. The barber shop is in the same building as the restaurant. Alice knew there was a coat that belonged to one of the barbers hanging on the wall. She also knew that there was a revolver in the coat pocket.

"Monday she reached into the pocket and got the revolver and followed Nafus down the street. She followed him into the pool hall and shot him. Then she fainted.

"Nafus had told many in Sanish how he got the best of my daughter. Alice is a good girl and we are going to stick to her.

About a year ago Nafus was held here on a bastardy charge from which he was dismissed when another young man testified in court that he had been connected with the same case.

Moorhead Daily News, 12-15-1926
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TRIAL FOR SLAYING "MAN WHO BOASTED"

Girl Who Killed to Vindicate Herself Reaches Trial

Stanley, N.D., Mar 2(UP)—Alice Holst, 17, who killed the man she said wronged her, to vindicate herself in the esteem of her lover, goes on trial here today.

She is expected to plead "not guilty" to first degree murder charges and the jury must decide whether will pay a penalty for shooting to death William Nafus, 20, in a Sanish pool hall December 13.

Following the murder, Alice, a waitress in the lunch room adjoining the pool hall, told authorities that she had shot Nafus and "was glad she had". She refused to talk further about the matter.

From her father and her fiancee, a young barber in Sanish, it was learned that Alice charged Nafus with having tried to force his attentions upon her and having followed her one night as she went home from work. He forced her, the father said, into a deserted schoolhouse.

Alice's grief became intense when Nafus bragged of his act and word of it reached her lover. The latter chided her.

Then Alice took a revolver, went to the pool hall and called Nafus to the door. While he backed away pleading, "Don't shoot Sis," she pulled the trigger and he fell dead.

Tyrone (PA) Daily Herald, 3-2-1927
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ALICE HOLST ACQUITTED OF NAFUS MURDER

Mountrail County Jury Finds Defendant Not Guilty on Grounds of Insanity

JURORS OUT ALL NIGHT

Miss Holst Will Go to Home of Relatives at Lidgerwood For Much Needed Rest

Stanley, N.D. March 16—Miss Alice Holst, 22-year-old Sanish girl, was acquitted at 9:35 this morning of the murder of William Nafus of Van Hook last December 13. The jury found the defendant not guilty on the grounds of insanity.

For the first time during the entire trial of the case the girl smiled faintly as the verdict was read, and as the jurors passed her, Miss Holst and her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. August Holst, each shook hands with the 12 men who had tried the case.

As the girl walked from the court room she started to cry and shortly thereafter she was put to bed.

Judge Geoge K Moellring of Williston, who presided at the trial, suggested to the parents and the girl's counsel, Attorney F. F. Wycoff of Stanley, that in view of what had transpired in the trial of the case, when the girl was twice affected by that her parents asserted were epileptic fits, that she be put under observation and be given medical treatment.

Attorney Wykoff informed the court that such plans had already been made, and said that the girl would go to Lidgerwood, N.D. for a stay with relatives to give her a much needed rest.

The jury was given the case at 6 p.m. yesterday and deliberated through the entire night, agreeing upon a verdict shortly after 8 a.m. today.

It was the contention of the defense that Miss Holst was in a seizure of psychic epilepsy at the time she killed Nafus in a Sanish pool hall on December 13.

Taking the witness stand in her own defense, the girl testified that she could not recall having killed Nafus and also asserted that she could not recall incidents or events for a few days prior to and subsequent to the slaying. She testified that Nafus on December 10 had criminally assaulted her.

Bismarck Tribune, 3/17/1927
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ALLEGED ATTEMPT TO KIDNAP AND SLAY MRS. ALICE HOLST HARDICK OF SANISH IS PROBED BY SHERIFF

Girl Who Was Acquitted Last Summer of Murdering William Nafus Claims She Was Seized at Her Home by Two Men, Who Threatened to Throw Her Off the Sanish Bridge

Minot, N.D., Dec 28—An attempt to kidnap and slay Mrs. Alice Catherine Holst Hardick of Sanish, who last summer was acquitted of a charge of murdering William Nafus in that village, today is under further investigation by Sheriff S. A. Warren of Stanley.

That the kidnaping {sp} was an unsuccessful attempt to keep the gurl in custody while they threatened to throw her off a high bridge in Sanish into the Missouri river, made by assassins hired by friends of the slain man, is the belief of the Mountrail county sheriff, he said today.

Two men, who came to her home and seized her when she opened a door leading into a shed, stuffed a mitten into her mouth, threw a coat over her head and put her in an automobile, the woman told the sheriff.

One of the men proposed that she be bound and left in the house and the dwelling be set afire, but the other argued that it would be better to take her onto the bridge and drop her a few hundred feet into open water beneath, Mrs. Hardick further asserted.

Fighting desperately, Mrs. Hardick said, she succeeded in breaking loose from the man who was sitting in the back seat of their automobile with her, and she fled to the down town section of Sanish, where she told of the attempt which had been made to take her life.

During three days of investigation, Sheriff Warren has interrogated a number of friends of Nafus, and gave the principal grilling to two Indians, who, however, were not retained in custody.

That the abduction attempt was conceived by friends of the slain youth who were dissatisfied with the verdict of acquittal returned by the jury who tried the girl on a charge of first degree murder was definitely decided upon bu the sheriff when he learned that last November 19 she had received a note through the mails saying:

"You better leave the country, or you will get just what you gave."

Enclosed with the note was a newspaper clipping telling of her marriage to Hardick, a barber, who was a witness in her behalf at the murder trial. The note was not signed.

In acquitting Miss Holst on a charge of murdering Nafus, whose home was at Van Hook, but who was residing at Sanish at the time he was killed, the jury found that the girl was insane at the time of the shooting.

She had gone into a Sanish pool hall, where Nafus was loitering, and, calling him to the front of the room, she fired a shot from a pistol which killed him almost instantly.

Testimony introduced at the trial by the defense was to the effect that she was afflicted by psychic epilepsy, a disease which, her expert medical witness said, often times renders the victim devoid of their senses and makes them unable to distinguish between right and wrong. The girl testified that she could not recall having killed Nafus, and also said she could not remember a number of incidents linked with the case which occurred subsequent to, until about two or three days later.

Bismarck Tribune, 12-28-1927

Alice Holst, Youthful N.D. Slayer, Victim of Attempted Kidnapping; Eludes Captors

Stanley, N.D., Dec. 27(UP)—What is believed to have been an attempt to kidnap and murder Alice Holst Hardick, who was freed of a charg {sp} if murder a little more than a year ago, was revealed by authorities today.

Although the attempt to abduct Mrs. Hardick was made late Friday, it was not officially known until today.

Two masked men entered the Hardick home last Friday night, seized the woman and dragged her to a waiting auto. Two handkerchiefs were stuffed down her throat and a muffler was tied over her mouth.

Mrs. Hardick struggled so violently with her captors that they asked the driver of the machine to stop while they bound her arms and legs. When the car door was opened Mrs. Hardick said she broke away from the men and fled to a nearby house. The machine was driven swiftly away.

Mrs. Hardick fell prostrate on the porch of the Frank Nellson home. After the gag was removd {sp} she related her story.

Mrs. Hardick as Alice Holst was freed on a charge of murder by a jury which found her insane at the time she shot Willie Nafus at Sanish, N.D. Nafus had assaulted the girl in an abandoned schoolhouse and afterwards bragged of it to the girl's sweetheart. She killed him, was found insane by a jury, and then paroled into the custody of her parents.

Moorhead Daily News, 12-27-1927
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